Slanted Skies
by Drizzle
Summary: Dilandau is lost in his own little world (again)


I do not own Escaflowne  
  
  
  
centerSlanted Skies/center  
  
From a distance, I see a woman, or a girl, shivering again the lusterless brown night, waiting for a customer. She stands with an elegance of her own. She must think vanity a nuisance. Only the silver shadings of her face could be seen in the mysterious cloak of night. I wonder if she is afraid of this place. In my dreams of here, I am always lost. Somewhere in the background, I hear a song  
  
Coming in on wing and prayer… Coming in on a wing and a prayer… though there's one motor gone, we will still carry on… coming in on a wing and prayer…  
  
The singer sings this joyfully, but I thing it's a sad song. He hasn't seen melefs flying on a prayer. They fall like birds. Birds with only one wing. I think about the dragonslayers. They are my friends, my best friends. I have never had any before and I'm terrified of losing them. I want to please.  
  
Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I know how to deal with. Hatred is clear, metallic, one handed, unwavering; unlike love. With hatred, you can kill your enemies and rejoice if they are hit. With enemies, you can feel hatred, and anger. But I feel love for my dragonslayers. What we share, the dragon slayers and I may be a lot like a crash, but we do share it. We are survivors, of each other. We have been shards to one another, but also parachute. And that counts for something. Tomorrow, battle dawns. I try in my vanity to find the last hopes of learning to hate them. My only family.  
  
The woman walk towards me in a slight limp. There is no smile on her face. She dreads this. I can feel my throat tightening, a pain along the jaw line. I've started to chew my lips again. There's blood, a taste I remember. It tastes of antacid tablets, hardened gumballs, red licorice, dirty ice. I feel as if I'm filling with cold air. With all this lightness, I do not rise, I descend. Or rather, I am dragged downward, into the layers of this place as into liquefied mud. She asked something, I hand her money in exchange. Her gray woolen mittens on my hard leather ones lead me into an alley. She hands me a protection. I found myself in a tiny greasy bathroom. Resisting the sickness in my stomach, I look at the little packet in my hand and stick it in to a crack on the wall. I squint into the mirror, preparing my face; there are shards of grime and dust on it. I could choke on it by mistake, an undignified way to die.  
  
When I go back out, she is already on the bed. I put my hands over hers. Cold shot up my arm, or hers. I draw her down, between my knees. I caressed the back of her neck in the softest touch that I could hinder. She leans in and kiss me like in a perfume ad; foreign and dangerous and potentially degrading. I could get up and run for it, but if I stay put, even for one more minute, there would be no more static from outside. I laid her down on the mattress. She looked up as if waiting. After a moment, she undoes her buttons. I thought about putting my arms around her. Instead, I stand there, as a statue would.  
  
I look at her hands, her smooth one, the nails pale moons, mine with its tattered cuticles, its skin of incipient toad. She hugs the blankets and shiver under my scrutiny. I take a step back, and back away from her, pulling on my gloves at the same time. I don't remember why I had taken them off. When I was sure I was on the other side of he door, I break down in to a trot. Turning away from… back there… down to where the Alseid stands, why did I land it on a bridge? The snow gives way under my feet like cotton wool packing. I sound like a cavity being filled, in a tooth, inside my head. Usually I'm afraid to go so near the edge of the bridge, but this time I'm not. I don't feel anything as positive as fear. The snow in my eyes withdraws like smoke.  
  
Now it's full night, clear, moonless and filled with stars, which are not eternal, as was once thought. Which are not where we think they are. Dornkirk has said. But I'd like to think they were. If they were sounds, they would be echoes, of something that happened millions of years ago; a word made of numbers. Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing.  
  
It's old light, Dornkirk said, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. The landscape is empty now, a place for sad painters. Or not empty; filled with what ever it is by itself, when I'm not looking. 


End file.
